Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[Kattla]

This is exactly Rolands point: It is you who thinks he needs to follow the path and not break through walls and not nerpole. Neither the game nor the developers (as far as I know) have ever stated that you should not do that. Maybe this is a myth the users of this forum created for themselves because getting at the best loot was always too predictable and easy.

 

Which points to the real fault: The big loot-bonanza end room. And the solution: Distribute or randomize the loot in POIs

 

My solution was to remove the POI's. But that was A17, not sure if that is still playable in A18.

Cons: Few wild zombies.

Which makes progress dead slow.

Which is a little bit boring in the long run.

Makes playing regular 7d2d feel like survival in a supermarket.

Pros: Feels more like survival.

Far better immersion.

Gives back some of the "good old 7 days to die" feel.

Makes the wasteland biome attractive, for once. (for the cars to loot).

 

Thanks to those here on the forum that made me do that experiment. It was worth it.

[madmole]

Hi.

In A16 was no problem with finding coal but in A17 is hard to mining and find some coal.

It is possible to craft some coal from wood? It an real thing process in real life. I guess it can be more good mining coal then made from wood.

 

Mining is fixed in A18. There are huge signs that say COAL HERE DUMMY with an arrow all over the world now. I made them for me, because I am a dummy and coudln't find coal, or any ore tbh.

[madmole]

The video was amazing!

 

The gyrocopter getting blown up was hilarious, sorry

I really liked the panic moments too.

 

Thanks yes you know the game is getting good when you can just crank out 2 great videos in a row with zero editing.

[Dimpy]

I'm all for new mechanics but you know what felt really samey? All the non-dungeon POI's with their repeated mechanics (zombie on the floor in middle of the room, zombie in the corner unobstructed by anything and killable from the doorway, walking into a building and seeing everything there is to see from the door, a room with a couch, a dresser, a tv on the wall, chairs, and drapes, maybe a duffel bag in the corner, go up stairs --> end of hall --> bedroom --> ladder --> attic) It grew old and new was made. In the future new new will be made and hopefully with new mechanics.

 

But why more of old?

 

The impression I got was the design you mentioned was more of a design unique to Diersville than one unique to all POIs lacking a dungeon crawl. Surely you understand that its possible to make a building interesting without adding the horde of zombies, linear path, and loot room that has come to define the dungeon crawl...

[Guppycur]

This is exactly Rolands point: It is you who thinks he needs to follow the path and not break through walls and not nerpole. Neither the game nor the developers (as far as I know) have ever stated that you should not do that. Maybe this is a myth the users of this forum created for themselves because getting at the best loot was always too predictable and easy.

 

Which points to the real fault: The big loot-bonanza end room. And the solution: Distribute or randomize the loot in POIs

 

Let's be real on this point. They may not have said those words, but they sure as hell have used harder blocks than the textures give the impression of to prevent people from doing just that. Cement painted like wood, basically says "we want you to go this way."

 

Chopping straight through "voxel loot style" is not as feasible as it sounds on paper.

 

These things are designed in every way to make you go down a specific path.

 

Except nerd polling, which thankfully MM said they would be addressing.

[unholyjoe]

Mining is fixed in A18. There are huge signs that say COAL HERE DUMMY with an arrow all over the world now. I made them for me, because I am a dummy and coudln't find coal, or any ore tbh.

 

do i dig in the direction of the arrow? ... because some of mine are pointing in n,e,w,s positions and not down or up..

 

i am so confused now.

 

also, when i see an arrow in a poi, is that a cue for something?

 

sorry... i couldnt resist... i'll go hide in my cave now.

 

i simply loved the day 84 video... was worth staying up to see it.

[Zombie_Jam]

This would:

- fix the nerdpoling to loot issue

- randomize and revitalise gaming experience

- remove the "one way street" feeling of dungeon POIs to some extent.

 

Very good idea. Spread out the loot, no need for it to be all in the final mega bonanza room

 

I find it irritating when people refer to nerdpoling as an issue, not a jab at you in particular but just in general. (Re: your comment, you do make a good point on spreading out loot.)

 

The game is supposed to be creative, and yet it seems more of a backdrop to an evolutionary arms race between the devs (and some players) and the player base at large.

 

The devs add features and people use those features creatively, then other people complain and the devs have to find a way of preventing this creative use, only for the first players to find a workaround.

 

This continues to the point where there are workarounds to workarounds.

 

I dont mean workarounds to exploits either, but I mean things like building underground.

 

That is an entirely legitimate, creative, and individual choice which was removed because a certain few other people found the preferences of their fellow zombie slayers disagreeable.

 

This is tyrranical, and forces the game into a 'no escape from zombies' nightmare where the freedom is non existent or extremely limited, since no matter what players do to avoid fighting - their pacifism is countered with an inevitable confrontation with the undead.

 

Some will suggest turning zombies off, but that is an affront to the free choice of playstyle for people who would like a safe place to retreat to and the option to go and hunt zombies when it pleases them.

 

Much in the same vein as the discussion regarding POI's, the option of a slider or 'on-off' for zombie digging would literally please everyone while favouring noone, and still allow those who like them to enjoy the features the devs have added.

 

I think it adds to a more personal and deeply appreciated experience of the game. Just my tuppence worth 😁

[Lukeirot]

A worry

 

Yes I wasted points on electricity and getting to int 5.

 

A little worried by this statement. As someone who would dump into INT and be the crafting base-building guy a mixture of your statements over the development for A18 has me worried you are making crafting a pointless endeavor. If stats on found items are almost always better than crafted ones, why bother. If much of the crafting is being shifted to other skills what is left in intelligence. If you are more interested in promoting active defense options rather than passive ones, what will be left for people that like to improve their wall, trap layout and layers of defense. I am worried that you see the videos of people abuseing the AI and assume everyone is doing that and trying to balance against that.

 

I'm worried even more by the Demolisher and what I saw in your video with it. compared to the concrete citadels I tend to create they would break a few blocks of concrete at most; I was hoping the Demolisher would be some Helms deep kind of wall blasting scenario, he just seemed like a cop with a timer on him.

 

Can you allay any of these worries?

[Guest Rassilon]

Madmole.

I think it was before your first BM Video, where you said that you increased the Zombies so that they come in masses from 22:00 till 4:00 and not only until Midnight.

 

Is this a general change? Or did you tweak your personal XMLs? If so, could you please eloborate wich ones, or make it a Server Config?

I only began to fiddle around with XMLs but kept my hands away from Spawn or Gamestage stuff

 

Thanks a lot.

[Zombie_Jam]

A little worried by this statement. As someone who would dump into INT and be the crafting base-building guy a mixture of your statements over the development for A18 has me worried you are making crafting a pointless endeavor. If stats on found items are almost always better than crafted ones, why bother. If much of the crafting is being shifted to other skills what is left in intelligence. If you are more interested in promoting active defense options rather than passive ones, what will be left for people that like to improve their wall, trap layout and layers of defense. I am worried that you see the videos of people abuseing the AI and assume everyone is doing that and trying to balance against that.

 

I'm worried even more by the Demolisher and what I saw in your video with it. compared to the concrete citadels I tend to create they would break a few blocks of concrete at most; I was hoping the Demolisher would be some Helms deep kind of wall blasting scenario, he just seemed like a cop with a timer on him.

 

Can you allay any of these worries?

 

I second these questions, particularly regarding intelligence, crafting, and the random stats.

 

And I sincerely hope they aren't moving away from crafting, that's one of the things I love most about 7D 😕

[unholyjoe]

my perception of MM videos.

 

MM is merely showing some of the possibilities of the perk system and not concentrated to one individual... it will be up to the players to choose which path you want. actually his play style would be similar to some of the single player styles that would benefit him in that particular game.

 

he is pretty well much proving that regardless what choices he makes and mistakes or glitches that happen (gyro RIP)... he is able to play... enjoy himself and survive...

 

trust me... the demolisher may or may not get a little assist here and there as that was the grand debut appearance of him and for the first test... he (the demolisher) did extremely well.

[Star69]

I think you guys are missing the point completely......he said these things concerning the build he made, not the game in general. You want to craft? Then perk into a craft build. You want to perk into electricity and intelligence? Make an intelligence build. You can no longer max everything in the same time period as you could in A17 and before. Since leveling is much much slower, you have to choose perks carefully. For his current build, spending points in intelligence was a bad move. Crafting will always be a major aspect of the game.

[madmole]

Ok, after watching the first 5 minutes of the new Dying light 2 play footage:

 

 

I REALLY want the para-sail for descending from high locations (the gyro code could be repurposed with new arm animations), And the grappling struggle minigame might be a nice addition as well. (Maybe a instant power shove knock down could be a book learnable skill?)

 

They have a contagion zone that could work like the radiation zone addition Joel mentioned, and the portable uv light defenses are really nice. Those could work in 7 days as well, and might make a nice new additional low lag powered trap defense to slow horde night attacks to give us more time to thin the herd.

 

I wonder if the slide knock down mechanic could also be added as a book unlockable melee skill?

 

We LOVED Dying light in a different way to love 7 days.

 

Looks very good. I think their games are geared for an amazing short (30 hours?) experience, but after you beat it I doubt there is any replay ability right away. I like the player/zombie interactive animations, that is something we have a team that can do now, but it might not really happen for 7 days, possibly a bit, that is something you design from the ground up not tack on the last home stretch.

[Callum123456789]

Looks very good. I think their games are geared for an amazing short (30 hours?) experience, but after you beat it I doubt there is any replay ability right away. I like the player/zombie interactive animations, that is something we have a team that can do now, but it might not really happen for 7 days, possibly a bit, that is something you design from the ground up not tack on the last home stretch.

do I smell a sequel where they do?

[meganoth]

Let's be real on this point. They may not have said those words, but they sure as hell have used harder blocks than the textures give the impression of to prevent people from doing just that. Cement painted like wood, basically says "we want you to go this way."

 

Providing disincentives is not the same as preventing. A safe with 2500 HP does equally give the impression that they don't want to give you the loot just so. Please invest some time if you want it.

And any closed door in your way could be interpreted in the same way, I don't see that the hiding makes much of a difference.

 

Chopping straight through "voxel loot style" is not as feasible as it sounds on paper.

 

If their intention is to prevent you from accessing the room, they are making a really really bad job. Most(?) POIs have perfectly accessible loot-rooms, the hidden cement trick isn't used consequently.

The trick might also be used because of SI or to prevent woken zombies from breaking the walls instead of going through doors.

 

Only TFP can say if it is a real design rule or maybe only used by one or two rogue designers with self esteem problems

[meganoth]

That is an entirely legitimate, creative, and individual choice which was removed because a certain few other people found the preferences of their fellow zombie slayers disagreeable.

 

This is tyrranical, and ...

 

b******. Nothing was removed.

 

Or do you want to claim that looting POIs was removed because since A16 there are zombies in the POIs ?

 

and forces the game into a 'no escape from zombies' nightmare where the freedom is non existent or extremely limited, since no matter what players do to avoid fighting - their pacifism is countered with an inevitable confrontation with the undead.

 

I actually think this sentence is pure genius. I imagine you sitting in your chair and having a big smile on your face for this audacious trolling (meant in a positive way, nearly on par with some of Rolands best trolling attempts. Naturally nothing can reach his masterpiece, the wrenchable mine)

 

PS: If it really wasn't trolling: Stealth is the solution to your pacifist leanings, up on the surface as well as underground. Underground you should also think about having a second exit, always.

[Zombiepoptard]

There is a trend where the level designers over use new stuff every time. Then they back it off or when new assets come online they delete some old new to make room for the new new. We've added a boat load of new models to A18, spaces look better than ever. The big stuff is yet to come but I really don't think anything you complain about is a big issue, you are seeing a WIP. I still think you need your head examined, why keep harping on a WIP? No we're not cleaning it up, we want a gritty filthy urban decay look to the game.

 

I'd be fine if it looks like Silent Hill 2 but It looked like silent hill 2 in a16. I get that some textures were looking out of sync in alpha 16 and I was on board at the time when you said that but I just think you overshot it. There was a green wallpaper texture that got removed in alpha 17. It was the green wallpaper texture used for almost every house in Dyersville. Can you improve the quality of that texture and put it back in please?

[Guppycur]

Providing disincentives is not the same as preventing. A safe with 2500 HP does equally give the impression that they don't want to give you the loot just so. Please invest some time if you want it.

And any closed door in your way could be interpreted in the same way, I don't see that the hiding makes much of a difference.

 

 

 

If their intention is to prevent you from accessing the room, they are making a really really bad job. Most(?) POIs have perfectly accessible loot-rooms, the hidden cement trick isn't used consequently.

The trick might also be used because of SI or to prevent woken zombies from breaking the walls instead of going through doors.

 

Only TFP can say if it is a real design rule or maybe only used by one or two rogue designers with self esteem problems

 

The practicality of chopping your way through is diminished enough that although boring and obvious, it's easier to follow the path. CAN we sit there all day chopping away at a steel bar in higashi to circumvent a parkour jump? Sure. Will we? No. The game deters us enough by design, to force us through the desired path.

 

That's the gripe of dungeon pois. They're cute, they're great fun the first or second time around, but then you start to see the patterns, can recognize the trap, and it becomes tiresome.

[Argeniat]

Man, this looks awesome. I'm always eagerly looking out for new videos since I love the direction this is going. I hope there's some kind of public playtest soon just so I can get my fill.

[meganoth]

A little worried by this statement. As someone who would dump into INT and be the crafting base-building guy a mixture of your statements over the development for A18 has me worried you are making crafting a pointless endeavor. If stats on found items are almost always better than crafted ones, why bother. If much of the crafting is being shifted to other skills what is left in intelligence. If you are more interested in promoting active defense options rather than passive ones, what will be left for people that like to improve their wall, trap layout and layers of defense. I am worried that you see the videos of people abuseing the AI and assume everyone is doing that and trying to balance against that.

 

You won't be the gun crafter for everyone, that's for sure. But crafting traps and walls seems still the domain of the INT guy (or the guy who gets all the crafting recipes in MP).

 

Building the defenses was always a separate matter from crafting, you can do that whether you are the crafter or someone else is.

[Elukka]

Daaaamn that latest video looked good. The demolisher zombie especially. I like seeing new challenges added, since after almost 5 years of playing, things had started being a bit too easy I'd like it to have even more explosive power. Maybe radiated ones could have some extra kick in their explosives? Like enough to wipe out couple of toughest concrete blocks.

I know the game can be made hard too, but I'm semi-social person and want to play in multiplayer. And that means playing with the player type I despise. Those who complain about zombies disturbing their peaceful building projects. Those who log out EVERY DAMN NIGHT to avoid violence. I'd be dragging these new demolisher zombies to their precious carrot farms and blow them up

 

I guess it's soon time to reconnect with my on-off-friends, with whom I always play about 50-100 hours before abandoning them until the next alpha

[ZehMatt]

Zombies biting the player would be difficult to do, let alone in a MP game.

 

Ah yes, 7 days is a very generic zombie game with horrible graphics, yet we have outsold every truly generic zombie game ever made. I think your assessment of what makes a great game is spot off. Our game is flat out fun and has nothing to do with voxels, but good game design. There have been hordes of minecraft clones that all failed, if voxels were the magic secret sauce then the industry would have switched to them.

 

I did not say that zombies should only try to bite players, but thanks for bending the context.

 

You surely did not outsell every "generic" zombie game, also 7 Days to Die has been in alpha for years now where an update follows every year or so.

 

Left 4 Dead 2:

Owners: 10,000,000 .. 20,000,000

Left 4 Dead:

Owners: 5,000,000 .. 10,000,000

Dying Light:

Owners: 2,000,000 .. 5,000,000

7 Days to Die:

Owners: 2,000,000 .. 5,000,000

 

The lore isn't dawn of the dead original version where zombies crawl out of their grave. These are not undead or reanimated corpses. Its more like 28 days later, where they are infected people who go crazy, and there is radiation from nuclear war mutating some things. There is no evidence that they are dead people who rise yet. At the end of the day it doesn't even matter, what matters is the game is fun.

 

As a game design having zeds pop out of the ground would be cheap to players, if you notice when they spawn out of nowhere it makes players upset. They don't any more, but sometimes just were well hidden and surprise players, but when it did happen it was cheap or made most players feel cheated.

 

So having zombies crawl out of the ground is what you consider cheap? So what kind of rating goes to spawning zombies right in front of your face where you can actually see it happen? Because that is bloody cheap, same applies to activating Quests where I can see the whole POI respawn where I just cleared every zombie.

 

Also pushing the sales of a game has exactly zero meaning to its quality, please don't mix them. I stick to my argument that good game design is where the player can believe the world he is in, it does not have to be realistic as long its consistent and has some sort of background to the mechanics which this game does not deliver at all.

[jdm311]

OMFG if you guys liked the day 77 horde day 84 made it look like a walk in the park. I somehow topped my bow drop video in the first minute of the video I'll never live this one down lol. Uploading tonight yet.

 

Oh My Forsaken Gyrocopter

[meganoth]

The practicality of chopping your way through is diminished enough that although boring and obvious, it's easier to follow the path. CAN we sit there all day chopping away at a steel bar in higashi to circumvent a parkour jump? Sure. Will we? No. The game deters us enough by design, to force us through the desired path.

 

That's the gripe of dungeon pois. They're cute, they're great fun the first or second time around, but then you start to see the patterns, can recognize the trap, and it becomes tiresome.

 

For your Higachi I raise you the book tower. With a few wood frames or ladders planted in the open(!) staircase you can get to somewhere around 4th floor without a single swing of your pickaxe. (if I remember correctly)

 

And after the second time you might also find ways to circumvent the parkour jump in Higachi. Most players will experience Higachi when they already have steel pickaxe and can go through the grates at the stairs with moderate effort anyway. I myself used that method sometimes when I didn't want to go through lower levels. It definitely was faster and used far less ammo than going through all levels.

 

Yes, the boredom of knowing every corner of some POI is real. But that is the curse of a finite selection of POIs. If you want to argue that old pois are better then show me the A15 or A16 POI that you could enter for the 4th time and still have an anticipation of wonder in your eyes?

 

I remember the same sensation of "Do I really want to enter this poi AGAIN?" at the end of every alpha I've been in.

[Guppycur]

For your Higachi I raise you the book tower. With a few wood frames or ladders planted in the open(!) staircase you can get to somewhere around 4th floor without a single swing of your pickaxe. (if I remember correctly)

 

And after the second time you might also find ways to circumvent the parkour jump in Higachi. Most players will experience Higachi when they already have steel pickaxe and can go through the grates at the stairs with moderate effort anyway. I myself used that method sometimes when I didn't want to go through lower levels. It definitely was faster and used far less ammo than going through all levels.

 

Yes, the boredom of knowing every corner of some POI is real. But that is the curse of a finite selection of POIs. If you want to argue that old pois are better then show me the A15 or A16 POI that you could enter for the 4th time and still have an anticipation of wonder in your eyes?

 

Oh you're mistaken; I'm not arguing that the old poi's were better, I'm arguing that their design is better to have as a majority. I don't need "Good loot" in every poi, so I'm happy to go into a normal house that has some standard day 1 junk (clothes, few cans of food, maybe a cooking pot) and call it a day.

 

That's in fact what I want.

 

I would *love* the dungeon poi's to have special loot I can't get anywhere else, to make them worth the effort, but do you know what I find when I go through those poi's? Clothes, some cans of food, and a cooking pot. Oh yeh and the occasional pile of goodies, certainly nothing I *need*.

 

And that finite selection of poi's? With the new dynamic block system, it doesn't have to be that way. They could literally have the interior of every building different, if they designed it from a different point of view. Why does a desk have to be limited to open vs closed? Why can't it be a nightstand, a bookcase, a trap, or even a wall?

 

More to the point though, why does EVERY house have dozens of these pallets inside of them? They're like onions in chinese food... they're cheap, and they fill up the plate.

 

There are just too many valid arguments against the amount of dungeon poi's. Thankfully TFP agrees with me on this one, and is adding more "generic" ones to the mix.